Days of Future Now
by GrievousError
Summary: This story is a crossover between American action cartoons, set in the nearfuture. The Teen Titans, now disbanded, are called together again to guard a topsecret government project, only to have the uneventful trip turned upsidedown by a certain secret ag
1. Infiltration

There had been better nights for Robin. Worse ones, too, though. It generally took a lot more than a case of severe boredom to constitute a "bad night" for the nineteen-year-old; boredom rarely played into those. And besides, seeing three of his best friend's faces after that many years of separation was rewarding enough for his trouble.

The masked teenager was patrolling the web of passageways that wound their way through the belly of the _Janus_, the huge oil tanker he had boarded along with his friends at nine PM that night. Cyborg was in the security center, just aft of the bridge; Raven was situated at the stern; Starfire was further below-decks, positioned in front a set of security doors that were the final line of defense for the ship's mysterious cargo. Robin frowned; ever since the Titans had disbanded, Beast Boy had apparently vanished off the face of the earth. He'd thought that maybe this assignment would have drawn the changeling out from whatever hole he'd crawled down, but the team's clown hadn't shown.

It was only one of things that was bothering Robin. The first was the situation he and his former teammates now found themselves in. A confidential source, claiming to be a government contractor, had contacted each of the ex-Titans through the communicators each had kept as a keepsake. According to this source, a valuable component of a top-secret project needed to be moved discreetly out of the country to secure location, but they weren't satisfied with normal security measures. Purely as insurance, they said, they wanted to hire the weekend-warrior Titans. The amount of money involved seemed almost obscene, but none of them had declined, probably due to the offer of seeing each other again.

At least, that's how Robin had approached the assignment. Just take a jaunt in an oil tanker from Jump City to an offshore oil platform; see his friends again, then back to college and get on with the rest of his life. _Fat chance of that_, the Teen Wonder mused. This time tomorrow, they'd be hanging out at the old pizza place, swapping old stories, and in a week, they'd be back together in the old team. It was something he'd tried to avoid thinking about ever since the team had split up, but maybe it had always been inevitable. No villain had ever broken the Titans; what could simple time do?

Smiling a little, Robin pressed down on the earpiece that had been provided along with a new outfit by their benefactor. It was more of a tactical uniform than a costume, but undoubtedly an excellent mix of style and practicality. Black, streamlined, and durable, it had grown on Robin since he'd first but it on; it seemed more respectable than a certain pair of green tights.

"Star, reading me?"

"Loud and undisrupted!" Starfire's clarion voice called back. Robin's smile widened. The alien princess-in-exile still had a preference for higher vocabulary, but by and large she'd integrated rather well with everyday life on Earth.

"Everything okay?"

"Yes, Robin. I do not believe we have encountered a mission of such ease since Dr. Light's attempt to change his home's light bulbs into fusion generators."

"It's _too_ easy, if you ask me," Cyborg chimed in. "A chimp could guard this boat; there's so much automated security, it's starting to freak me out."

"Greed makes people paranoid," Ravens' cool monotone interjected. "And, they like to have someone to blame if a machine makes a mistake."

"Alright, team, keep the channels clear," Robin said evenly, capping the discussion. "Next report at…" Robin consulted his wristwatch. "…Twenty-three-hundred. Stay sharp." Nearly two hours on this floating fortress, and not a sign of any potential threats. If this cargo was as important as their employer had stressed, any number of criminals or terrorists should have descended on them by now. Instead, there was just this eerie quiet, broken only by the hum of the ships engines.

The leader of the Titans passed the crew's lounge. They seemed to be relieved at the lack of action. Eight men, about three-quarters of the crew, were gathered at a table, while one, younger than the rest, was apparently regaling them with a story. Blond and freckled, he was waving his arms, exaggerating some detail, while the rest laughed and nodded.

Robin sighed. There really was no reason to be overly worried, he decided. As it happened, there _were _several reasons; the young superhero was simply unaware of them, but it soon became clear what one of them was.

Just as he rounded the next corner, a fist flew out of the blind spot between the halls, catching him in the chest and throwing him back into the bulkhead. Vision blurred from the blow, he barely saw the lithe figure coming at him again before it delivered a jumping side kick to his head. Robin went down, still clinging to consciousness. The assailant seized him by the shoulders, dragging him out of the main hallway and into a side room. Just as he was dropped, he surprised his foe by pivoting on his hands and spinning their legs out from under them. The attacker somersaulted backwards and stood as Robin front flipped up, but he got no respite. His foe came at him again, striking with a barrage of lightning-fast kicks to his head and chest. Robin parried them as best he could, but immediately recognized this: while he had kept in practice after leaving the Titans, he hadn't been in a real fight for years. This person, whoever they were, was faster, more precise, and in overall better shape. It wasn't long before the relentless attack broke Robin's defense, spinning him onto the floor again. His assailant vaulted over him, shutting the door in the same move. With his head ringing, Robin reached with leaden hand to his earpiece, pressing the transmit button twice. This set off a panic signal on the communicator's frequency, alerting the security system, just as the teen passed out.

In the security center, Cyborg tapped furiously on the multiple keyboards, eyes darting from screen to screen. The panic signal should have tripped the automatic security, locking the ship down; it had apparently failed, so the half-man, half-machine was trying to activate the measures manually, still to no avail.

"Cyborg, what is happening?" Starfire, voice raised in concern, broke in through the audio feed.

"I don't know…I've lost contact with Robin, none of the security's working, and …" as Cyborg stared at the computer screen, windows began to pop up of their own accord. Or, of somebody else's. "The system's been hacked, badly," Cy decided out loud. He glanced at the camera screens again, seeing a figure clad in a back bodysuit race through the field of view. "And, we've got an intruder."

"Three. Three intruders."

The ex-Titan didn't even have time to turn in order to see who had spoken before his systems shut down, and a tiny, hairless rodent popped out of the open access plate in his back and jumped into the outstretched hand of the person standing in the doorway.

The young man who had masqueraded as a member of the crew pulled a handheld device from his pocket. Though it looked like a PDA, a quick press of the controls opened an audio/video feed on its screen.

"Security cleared, K.P. Man, I didn't know they'd brought the Titans out of the woodwork for this."

"Stay frosty, Monkey Master. We're nowhere near the finish yet."

"Right with ya. I'll beep if we hit any snags."

"Good man. Wade?"

A thirteen-year-olds' voice answered through the pirated channel.

"Everything's shipshape; I'm opening the blast doors now."

Kim Possible, face concealed by a tactical mask, stepped in front of the massive, slowly opening gates, facing down the tall young woman who stood guarding them. A scrap of loose paper drifted on a draft through an intersection in the halls.


	2. Escape

The Starbolt sizzled through the air, missing Kim's head by millimeters. The secret agent pushed herself off the bulkhead, dodging the other incoming blasts. If she hadn't had such frequent experience of fighting someone else with energy-projection powers, she would have been fried. As Kim ducked another blast, she ruefully observed that, despite the other similarities, Shego had never belted out energy like a machine gun.

Kim dove across the hall, finally reaching her destination; the intersection that would provide her with some actual cover, and give her time to set up a counterattack.

As the intruder took shelter, Starfire held her ground. Flying straight at an opponent she couldn't see would remove her advantage in firepower.

"Who are you?" the alien princess-in-exile inquired imperiously.

"Sorry, that's classified," the snide remark came sailing back.

"Why are you here? What have you done with Robin?"

"I thought the whole 'classified' thing was kind of a blanket statement," the intruder returned.

Kim reached into her tactical equipment belt. She had a suspicion that the taser she was carrying, designed for human targets, wouldn't do the trick. Judging by the way her opponent could fill the air with energy, a smoke grenade was just as pointless.

As she rummaged, the receiver in her ear chirped. The voice of Wade Load, her team's resident electronics genius, came over the airwaves.

"Kim, I've cracked the door combination-"

"Open them! Open them now!"

With characteristically quick thinking, Kim leapt up, her plan formed, and closed her hand over the grip of her trusty grapple gun. She dove into the hallway, narrowly avoiding the barrage that Starfire sent at her. Landing on the opposite wall, she pushed off immediately, seeming to fly into the middle of the corridor. Whipping the gun forward, Kim shot it directly at her adversary. Starfire dodged the hook without problem, but quickly saw that she was not the target.

The hook and line whizzed through the slowly-opening security doors, coming to a clattering stop somewhere within the ship's hold.

Landing on her stomach, almost winded, Kim thumbed the retract control. The grapnel skidded backwards for a moment before its titanium hooks dug into the deck, sending Kim catapulting forwards.

"Close!" she shouted into her mike as she passed Starfire.

The doors reversed direction. Kim stretched out, making herself as thin as she could.

The last view of the outside she got before the doors shut was an enraged Starfire, rushing the doors. A slam of tungsten steel and a boom of impact indicated that the secret agent was safe for the moment.

Picking herself off the floor, Kim knelt to catch her breath. Taking a quick glance around the cavernous room, she activated her mike again.

"Wade, are we still clear?"

"One-hundred percent. Just secure the objective and leave the rest to me. Twelve meters down, forty meters directly ahead."

"I see it."

She did; the objective was hard to miss. Tucked among a veritable jungle of electronic equipment, steel ducts, and snake-like tubing, a Plexiglas canister glowed in the dim lighting.

Even from that distance, Kim could see its contents: the nutrient fluid that illuminated it, and the black-haired boy suspended within.

Her wind recovered, Kim jogged to the canister and made a quick search of the surrounding control panels. Plugging a fiber-optic cable into a port, she activated her transmitter, letting Wade undo the locking mechanisms and retrieve their package; after being designated missing-in-action for nearly a year, Danny Phantom had been located.

Wade completed his task within seconds. The fluid drained away and the canister slid down, allowing Kim to catch the seventeen-year-old as he heeded the call of gravity.

_At least whoever's behind this has _some _sense of decency_, Kim thought, thankfully noting that Danny was clad only in a pair of trunks. It would have been rather awkward to carry a naked boy around while escaping; half-naked probably wasn't much of an improvement.

Danny's eyelids fluttered, slowly opening. His eyes swam groggily, settling on the masked face of his rescuer.

"Who-"

Kim pulled off the balaclava-style mask. The boy's features slid into a slow recognition, and a smile. Kim smiled back.

"Consider yourself paid back," Kim said.

"Cool," Danny replied thickly.

"Ah, Kim?"

Ron Stoppable's voice, a little on the shrill side, interrupted the conversation. She clapped her hand to her ear to trigger the mike.

"We're pulling out, Ron. Objective secured."

"Yeah, that's cool; but can you tell that to the crazy chick with the purple hair?"

After infiltrating the crew, planting the homing device that led Kim to the ship, disabling Cyborg, and securing the security center, Ron had figured that the rest of their mission would be smooth sailing. Raven disagreed.

After loosing contact with both Robin and Cyborg, the sorceress had headed towards the security center, discovering Ron, his rodent companion Rufus, and her half-mechanical, fully-unconscious teammate. Having a choice between certain death and serious injury, Ron had done what any sensible person would have; he'd jumped out the nearest porthole. Landing in a conveniently-placed pile of empty boxes, the blonde sidekick and his mole rat had proceeded to dash around the deck of the ship, silently thanking God for the beautiful, cushiony, brown miracle called cardboard.

He'd evaded Raven for almost five minutes, but hadn't noticed that he was being penned in and driven toward the ship's bow. As he called Kim, he was crouching behind a spare spool of chain, the last cover he could find.

Now, Ron knew he was doomed. Raven floated into view, dark energy glowing around her fists. She telekinetically swept the chain aside with a wave of her hand, then fired a veritable battering ram of energy at him. Ron rolled to the side, knowing that even his superhuman reflexes couldn't help him dodge the attack. However, Ron Stoppable is not known for predicting the future.

The blast collided with a hemisphere of pulsing, green energy. Ron looked up to see Danny, now white-haired and resplendent in his uniform, shielding him.

"I thought _we_ were supposed to be rescuing _you_," Ron said, elated that he wasn't going to have all his bones broken.

"Can't let you lovebirds have all the fun," Danny returned, picking up his friend and dropping his shield as they flew over the astonished Titan.

Raven recovered her composure quickly. She calmly analyzed the situation; the white-haired boy hadn't attacked alongside the other two. Therefore, he had either just arrived, or he had been on the ship, but disabled in some way. One of the quiet voices in her mind suspected the truth, but her priorities asserted themselves; she had to stop the intruders at all costs. This time, it was Danny who disagreed.

As Kim, emerged from the ship's belly, and Ron, atop the towering bridge, bundled into a remotely stationed tilt-rotor, Danny sucked in a huge breath of the cold sea air. He released the breath in a roar that seemed to shake the entire world. Raven was knocked flat to the deck, while the ship sank several yards under the pressure of the Ghostly Wail.

One mission failed, one mission successful.


	3. Evidence

Danny was starting to feel Sick; that nebulous, gooey-throated sensation that defies diagnosis. Lethargy, a scratchy throat, and runny nose, and clamminess were all present, as well as a general discomfort, or unease.

While most people blame disease for their symptoms, these are actually the body's defense mechanisms, triggered at the detection of an intruder. Though Danny knew this, he'd dismissed it as a result of being stuck in a sterile tube for a year.

The three friends had been holed up in the Possible household for four days, with Wade calling in regularly with reports. Nothing so far; it seemed that the rescue had gone off without any hint of a hitch. On the fifth day, they received a rude awakening.

All three were asleep, Kim in her bedroom, Ron and Danny crashing on couches. Wade's face flickered onto Kim's computer at three in the morning, a note of panic in his voice.

"Kim! KIM!"

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, the young secret agent acknowledged with a garbled "Yeah?"

"I just found a report on the tanker."

Kim was instantly awake.

"Give me the details."

"Where should I start? The Coast Guard found it run aground fifty miles south of San Francisco; not a soul on board."

"Well, you don't the Titans would leave the crew behind, do you?"

"There's more. The navigation database was purged, crew rosters seized, and the hold was stripped bare. I managed to get a roster earlier; none of the crew have reported in, and there's no other record of them anymore. Someone got onboard after you guys did, and covered up any tracks they left. That would include the Titans, the crew, and every shred of equipment."

Speechless for a moment or two, Kim clenched her fists.

"Who _are_ these people?" she whispered.

Wade shook his head.

"I'm no closer to that answer then I was a year ago. It's an incredible stroke of luck that we even found Danny. Whoever our tipster was, we owe him a lot."

Three days before the rescue mission, Team Possible had been teetering on the brink of losing hope; then, the message arrived. Its method of delivery was unorthodox, to say the least. Few people used carrier pigeons nowadays; fewer wrote tips in Japanese poetics:

_A chill sea wind blows._

_A golden prison awaits._

_The wind cries for aid._

Maybe not incredibly subtle, but inspired, Wade had said. Deciphering the poem, the thirteen-year-old had zeroed in on their objective within a day and a half.

Still, Kim felt trapped. They were caught between two sides, both invisible. She had no idea what sort of game was underway, or the motivations, or anything, for that matter.

"So, what do we do?" she asked, tired all over again.

"I was going to suggest giving Danny a brain-tap to see if he had any subconscious memories, but at this stage, I'm sure whoever's behind this would erased traces in that area before shipping him."

"Do we have _any_ leads?"

"Two. Here's the first: we now that our tipster sent us a haiku, and that the tanker was bound for Tokyo."

"Yakuza?"

"Unlikely. According to my sources, there's been a lot of really bad infighting lately, and pulling a job like this requires some serious organization."

"Fine. What's the second?"

"These."

Two windows popped up on Kim's screen; image files. One was a square stood on one of its points, with a short line through each side. The second was more complex, a web of connecting lines.

"The first one seems to be some kind of samurai _mon_, the equivalent of a coat-of-arms. I've been searching everywhere, but I can't find a record of it."

"That fits, so far. What's the second?"

"It's a kanji character; a picture representing a word."

"What does it say?"

Wade hesitated for a moment.

"_Aku_. It means "evil."

The word sent shivers down Kim's spine.

"Any correlations?" she asked hopefully.

Wade shook his head again.

"Nothing."

Kim bit her lip to stifle a curse.

"I know, Kim. But, since we seem to be in the clear for the moment, we should get Danny a physical tomorrow."

"Yeah…" Kim suddenly remembered something.

"Yeah, definitely; Danny's been kind of fluey. Just regular symptoms, but you're right about the check-up. We'll be able to keep it confidential, right?"

"Absolutely."

A sharp rap at Kim's door made them both start.

"Uh, Kim? We've got problems!"

Ron, close to hysterics, was wide-eyed and bouncing from foot to foot when Kim opened the door. Kim grabbed her boyfriend by the shoulders to steady him.

"What? What is it?"

"It's Danny! He's…gone!"

* * *

Evil revealed! New mysteries! Did I mention evil?  
Tell me what you think of this latest installment, and prepare yourself for the next exciting chapter!


End file.
